We had a fair turnout for our first Championship Qualifier of the year – 13 players turned out to try their luck; 10 in the men’s division, 3 in the women’s. We really need to work on improving that ratio; I expect I will do an “intro to tournaments” class or “first timer tournament” event some time in the next couple of months.
In the women’s, I intended to run it as a round-robin; but Leah had to leave after her first match – apparently unconcerned about placing in a future qualifier to defend her title. Julie was the big winner of the day, beating both Leah and then Paola, but both Julie and Paola qualify for the Championship at the end of the year.
In the men’s, I ran it as a full 16-person bracket, but with 6 first round byes. Getting the anti-byes were Joel and Ed (Joel winning that matchup) and Larry and Noah (Larry winning that matchup). The rest of us had an easier time of it. Final 4 were Joel, Tim, Steve, and me. Steve and I had a really fun match; Tim reported not enjoying his match against Joel all that much. Joel was on fire with the dice, rolling big doubles aggressively in the bearoff.
Final was me versus Joel. Joel took an early lead, winning a doubled gammon in the first game to take a 4-0 lead in our match to 7. He won a doubled single in the next game, taking us to 6-0 Crawford. I managed to survive the Crawford game, and went into game 4 trailing 1-6. Game 4 took all of 20 seconds – I won the opening roll, making my bar point; Joel rolled something mediocre, I doubled, he correctly passed. So we went into game 5 with me trailing 2-6.
Game 5 I won the opening roll with a 2 versus his 1, coming down off the midpoint and slotting my 5 point. Joel rolled a 6-4, hitting both my blots, and I doubled with two checkers on the bar. He correctly took, but I managed to come out ahead, winning a gammon almost 30 moves later. And so we went into game 6 tied, 6-6. Game 6 was an exciting one, with some big swings – for instance I rolled double 6’s to take the lead, and Joel immediately rolled double 6’s to take it back. Lots of 6’s – game 6, tied 6 to 6, back to back double 6’s! In the end, I managed to out-roll him in the bearoff. So both Joel and I qualify for the men’s championship.
Next regular tournament is scheduled for April 19, and on May 2 we will have a special event, the Portlandia Spring Invitational. Hope to see you there!
-Mark